Formatting

The default value for parse will attempt to discover links in text but does not support URL markup. To update messages with URL markup, you must specify parse=none. For more information, refer to the formatting spec.

To use link_names, you'll need to explicitly set the parse parameter to full.

The optional attachments argument should contain a JSON-encoded array of attachments. If you do not include an attachments property,
a message's previous attachments will remain visible. To remove a previous attachment, include an empty attachments array with your request. For more information, see the attachments spec.

Valid message types

Only messages posted by the authenticated user are able to be updated using this method. This includes regular chat messages, as well as messages containing the me_message subtype. Bot users may also update the messages they post.

Attempting to update other message types will return a cant_update_message error.

The response includes the text, channel and timestamp properties of the
updated message so clients can keep their local copies of the message in sync.

Bot users

To use chat.update with a bot user token, you'll need to think of your bot user as a user, and pass as_user set to true while editing a message created by that same bot user.

Interactive messages with buttons

If you're posting message with buttons, you may use chat.update to continue updating ongoing state changes around a message. Provide the ts field the message you're updating and follow the bot user instructions above to update message text, remove or add attachments and actions.

Errors

This table lists the expected errors that this method could return.
However, other errors can be returned in the case where the service is down
or other unexpected factors affect processing. Callers should always
check the value of the ok params in the response.

Error

Description

message_not_found

No message exists with the requested timestamp.

cant_update_message

Authenticated user does not have permission to update this message.

channel_not_found

Value passed for channel was invalid.

edit_window_closed

The message cannot be edited due to the team message edit settings

msg_too_long

Message text is too long

too_many_attachments

Too many attachments were provided with this message. A maximum of 100 attachments are allowed on a message.

no_text

No message text provided

not_authed

No authentication token provided.

invalid_auth

Invalid authentication token.

account_inactive

Authentication token is for a deleted user or workspace.

no_permission

The workspace token used in this request does not have the permissions necessary to complete the request.

invalid_arg_name

The method was passed an argument whose name falls outside the bounds of accepted or expected values. This includes very long names and names with non-alphanumeric characters other than _. If you get this error, it is typically an indication that you have made a very malformed API call.

invalid_array_arg

The method was passed a PHP-style array argument (e.g. with a name like foo[7]). These are never valid with the Slack API.

invalid_charset

The method was called via a POST request, but the charset specified in the Content-Type header was invalid. Valid charset names are: utf-8iso-8859-1.

invalid_form_data

The method was called via a POST request with Content-Typeapplication/x-www-form-urlencoded or multipart/form-data, but the form data was either missing or syntactically invalid.

invalid_post_type

The method was called via a POST request, but the specified Content-Type was invalid. Valid types are: application/x-www-form-urlencodedmultipart/form-datatext/plain.

missing_post_type

The method was called via a POST request and included a data payload, but the request did not include a Content-Type header.

team_added_to_org

The workspace associated with your request is currently undergoing migration to an Enterprise Organization. Web API and other platform operations will be intermittently unavailable until the transition is complete.

request_timeout

The method was called via a POST request, but the POST data was either missing or truncated.

Warnings

This table lists the expected warnings that this method will return.
However, other warnings can be returned in the case where the service
is experiencing unexpected trouble.

Warning

Description

missing_charset

The method was called via a POST request, and recommended practice for the specified Content-Type is to include a charset parameter. However, no charset was present. Specifically, non-form-data content types (e.g. text/plain) are the ones for which charset is recommended.

superfluous_charset

The method was called via a POST request, and the specified Content-Type is not defined to understand the charset parameter. However, charset was in fact present. Specifically, form-data content types (e.g. multipart/form-data) are the ones for which charset is superfluous.